Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 3h

They stole the books I co-wrote in order to train their planet-burning hallucination machine, so I've filed a claim.

Ryan Estrada @ryanestrada.com · Sep 6

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.

OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 9h

I saw The Good Bubble Narrative at Glastonbury back in 2015. A cracking set.

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 9h

'It's going to be really bad': Fears over AI bubble bursting grow in Silicon Valley www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... - luckily, all my money is safely invested in jpegs of monkeys, and tulip bulbs.

A tangled web of deals stokes AI bubble fears in Silicon Valley

Some are worried that the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be a bubble waiting to burst.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 1d

My good chum (and newly Mortal Enemy since he joined Firefox) Jank Architect (@jakearchibald.com) seeks your input on which web platform features Interop 2026 should focus on, at the exquisitely named interop.rank-jake-archibald site: interop-rank.jakearchibald.com

Interop Feature Ranking

Rank the web platform features you care most about

interop-rank.jakearchibald.com

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 1d

The Children Who Power Silicon Valley’s AI Dreams aylgorith.com/the-children...
Congolese children mine cobalt for $2/day while 95% of Africa’s AI researchers can’t afford the GPUs their data trains.

The Children Who Power Silicon Valley's AI Dreams

Congolese children mine cobalt for $2/day while 95% of Africa's AI researchers can't afford the GPUs their data trains.

aylgorith.com

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 1d

“Many of the ideas for interventions that have been raised in this process would inhibit UK innovation and growth" sobbed Google, as the UK competition regulator designated Google Search with strategic market status. Thoughts and prayers. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Google given special status by watchdog that could force it to change UK search

CMA puts Google under tighter regulation with ‘strategic market status’ designation and can enforce changes

www.theguardian.com

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 2d

New Vivaldi 7.6 for iOS adds custom search engines (add your own, rather than choose one from a defined list), and Reader mode. vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi...

Vivaldi 7.6 on Mobile: Smarter reading, better tabs, and a little polish where it counts | Vivaldi Browser

We are rolling out Vivaldi 7.6 for iOS and Android. This release brings some massive upgrades to iOS that make reading, searching, and multitasking a lot better. On Android…

vivaldi.com

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 3d

The accessibility overlay fact sheet that @5t3ph.bsky.social alluded to at #smashingconf is at overlayfactsheet.com/en/

Overlay Fact Sheet

An open letter about accessibility overlays.

overlayfactsheet.com

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 3d

He was one of the talking people on stage!

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 3d

Learning about Visa Chart Components at #smashingconf - open-source accessible data visualisation web components design.visa.com/data-visuali...

Visa Product Design System

Learn how to use Visa Chart Components with the Visa Product Design System for ease and efficiency.

design.visa.com

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 3d

Paging @tkadlec.bsky.social

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 3d

Learning about Incremental Font Transfer at #smashingconf, a W3C spec to decrease the perceived latency for downloading web fonts - particularly useful for CJK and other non-Latin scripts. www.w3.org/TR/IFT/

Incremental Font Transfer

www.w3.org

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 4d

AT #smashingconf, @tkadlec.bsky.social is reminding us that betting on the browser (rather than JavaScript abstractions) is our best chance of long-term success.

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 4d

I'm in New York, which is a bit different from original York, repping @vivaldi.com and @browserchoicealliance.org who are sponsoring @smashingconf.com.

Me and Ashley in front of sponsor board listing Browser Choice Alliance (and Microsoft Edge!)

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 7d

Happy Anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, to all decent people.

Plaque: Plaque "THE BATTLE OF CABLE STREET
The people of East London rallied to Cable Street on the 4th October 1936 and forced back the march of the fascist
Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts through the streets of the East End.
"THEY SHALL NOT PASS""

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Reposted by Bruce Lawson

Lea Verou, PhD @lea.verou.me · 19d

Computing some preliminary analysis over the #StateOfHTML pain points data and some …interesting patterns are emerging 🙃

Two Pie charts titled "Complaints about specific browsers" showing about half Safari browser, around a third Firefox, and about a sixth Chrome

Two Pie charts titled "Complaints about specific vendors", one titled "All complaints" and the second "Explicitly about interop". The first is showing around 55% Apple, with a tiny sliver of Microsoft and the rest split evenly across Google and Mozilla, whereas the second is 100% Apple.

Two Pie charts titled "Mobile vs desktop", one titled "All complaints" and the second "Explicitly about interop". Both are showing about a third desktop and two thirds mobile.

Two Pie charts titled "Complaints about specific platforms", one titled "All complaints" and the second "Explicitly about interop". The first is showing around three quarters iOS, around 15% Android, a tiny sliver of Linux, and the rest split evenly across MacOS and Microsoft Windows. The second chart is >80% iOS, with the rest being Android.

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Reposted by Bruce Lawson

Rick Byers @rbyers.net · 7d

I believe it's fundamentally impossible to ship Chrome on iOS meeting the same high quality bar we have on other platforms when we are forced to rely on WKWebView and very slow and unreliable issue handling.

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 8d

This is Apple. It just works (tm)

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 8d

Developers! If you want to distribute software "applications" that don't depend on the whims of multi-billion dollar organisations romantically linked to illiberal regimes across the globe, there's a brand new vague-but-exciting technology you can use, called "the Web"! pwa.dev

PWA

Progressive Web App

pwa.dev

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 8d

I'm jolly glad that @vivaldi.com is once again sponsoring the fantastic State of the Browser conference, curated lovingly by its crew of splendid volunteers. 2026.stateofthebrowser.com/supporters/ - See you there, I hope!

Supporters | State of the Browser

Help us make State of the Browser 14 even better by supporting us.

2026.stateofthebrowser.com

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Reposted by Bruce Lawson

SmashingConf @smashingconf.com · 8d

At SmashingConf NY next week, say hi to @brucel.bsky.social from the @BrowserChoiceAlliance.org — they stand for choice in desktop browsers. Their coalition includes big names (Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, etc.), all working to keep innovation alive and fair. Glad to have you on board!

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 9d

כְּתִיבָה וַחֲתִימָה טוֹבָה to all my Jewish chums. xx

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 9d

כְּתִיבָה וַחֲתִימָה טוֹבָה to all my Jewish chums. xx

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 9d

Prolonging the life of another Windows 10 machine by installing Linux while keeping a Windows look and feel. Thanks, ZorinOS! Naturally, Vivaldi is available from the Software store, and LibreOffice is pre-installed. My 80 year old mum took very little time to feel at home with it.

The software store started from the Start menu

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Bruce Lawson @brucel.bsky.social · 9d

Inside the Microsoft Excel Championships www.huckmag.com/article/micr... "You could hear a pin drop in the room, but on the YouTube live stream, it’s getting wild."

Revenge of the nerds: Inside the Microsoft Excel UK Championships

The Obsessives — Microsoft Excel turns 40 today, But behind the spreadsheets lies a world of brains, brawn and all-out bloodsport.

www.huckmag.com

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